100,000 Words Later

A little over three years ago I began writing my first book. There were MANY periods of doubt and procrastination in my first year and a half. The dream, and the story, were beyond me. It wasn’t until the end of year two that I had actually thrown myself into the task fully, and the main catalyst for that was a simple, if startling, revaluation. Originally, I believed I was writing a single book, but as I sat thinking, reviewing notes, outlines, and ideas, I saw what I had been too inexperienced to notice. The book was simply going to be to big. At the same time looked at what I had already done and realized something important, if I looked at my draft as part of a trilogy, not a stand alone, then I had finished my draft of book one some three or four chapters ago. I remember sitting stunned as all of the pieces of my outline began falling quite naturally into a trilogy structure. Not only that, but I had written an entire book. True, it was only 50,600 words, but I had done it. I scrolled back through my seventy pages and began to read excitedly. That’s when I discovered that the man who had started writing two years ago, was not the man reading that day. It was excruciating. I realized almost immediately I was going to have to do a major revision, but at least this time I didn’t have to worry about length. After all, I had around 30,000 words of leeway, and it had taken two years to do 50,000.

This spring I completed my second draft of book one. Again, I was so excited. I was head and shoulders above the first draft, and I felt like I was nearly ready for publishing. It was only a handful of months ago, yet I can hardly believe how naive I was, yet again. I began to let the first person ever read my book. My wife was as kind as she was able, but I could tell she was not impressed. We began revising, chapter by chapter, from the beginning. We did this every weekend, with me sending her off to go read more again and again. I fully admit that I was, and am not, good and handling her criticism. But we push on.

Que two weeks ago. My wife had built this website (doing a fantastic job) and I had launched chapter one here. I hadn’t even posted my second blog post. I had been in a slump, revising a chuck of about four chapters more times than I can remember. Finally I realized I was losing perspective on it and I had to jump forward. So I skipped a head, not far, but to the next set of chapters. At this point we were about two-thirds through our third draft. I began flushing out the scene, being a much more experienced writer than last I looked at it, and it hit me. AGAIN. There is too much here. With all the additions from the editing and revising I was now over 100,000 words! Some 20,000 words above where I should be! I had to step away from my keyboard, and spent the next two days deep in thought. I realized that my beginning was ridiculously slow building, that the book was too long for the target audience, and while it was again, head and shoulders above draft two, I was going to have to make serious changes again. This single book, which had become a trilogy, was going to have to expand itself to fit the story once again.

So here it is, the big announcement, the Casted Shadows Trilogy is not a trilogy anymore. It is going to be a five-part series. Knowing this means that I need to completely re-conceptualize the pacing of the first half of book one, and I have spent every free moment since either writing or thinking about how to do this. Chapter one is a little different, chapter two is pretty different, and chapter three is entirely new, more exciting, material. What is happening now is even changing the ending of the final book. The upside is that now I have the first daft of book two (the remains of book one) already written, and so, in a way, I’ve now written two novels. There is massive amounts of work to overhaul book one now, but with each new draft I grow by leaps and bounds as a writer, and when I finally publish I know not only that I truly love this work, but that I have the zeal to carry it through into a full career.

Please continue to support me by sharing me and my page with friends and family, and by being the wonderfully supportive audience you have already become to me.

Well, now I’m out of excused to avoid jumping back into revisions, I guess I will jump back into it. I hope you enjoyed the update.